HYDERABAD: Incorporating all elements of a thrilling car chase, the TRS ‘car’ stormed past all other contestants, setting the tracks on fire and snatching another thrilling victory for the Pink Party, in the race to conquer Warangal Lok Sabha seat, the heartland of Telangana.
It was an emphatic victory for Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, as his party candidate Pasunuri Dayakar trounced his opponents from the Congress and TDP-BJP combine by a margin of a whopping 4.5 lakh votes. To be precise, the victory margin was 4,59,092 votes which was the seventh biggest victory margin in the history of elections in India.
The nearest rival was Congress’ Sarve Satyanarayana who managed to garner just around 1.56 lakh votes followed by BJP’s Devaiah who polled 1.30 lakh plus votes.
break-up of votes
Pasunuri Dayakar (TRS) 6,15,403
Sarve Sathyanarayana (Cong) 1,56,311
P Devaiah (BJP-TDP) 1,30,178
Jajula Bhaskar 28,541
Nalle Suryaprakash (YSRC) 23,352
Vinod Kumar (Left) 14,788
Dayakar’s Margin 4,59,092
In the 2014 election, Kadiyam Srihari of the TRS won the Warangal seat with a margin of over 3.92 lakh votes but fighting adversities Dayakar bettered the margin and made the TRS proud. The victory came at a time when the opposition parties were cornering the state government over farmers’ suicides but all controversies turned non-issues as the byelection proved that the popularity of TRS has not taken a beating.
Though all political parties were sure about the victory of TRS, no one, including the ruling party expected such a landslide victory. All opposition parties were in for a rude shock as Dayakar raced past Kadiyam Srihari’s victory margin.
Interestingly J Bhaskar of Shramashakti Party polled 28,000 votes, which is more than the votes polled by the YSRC and Left candidate. TRS supporters said the similarity of Bhaskar’s symbol with TRS’s car helped him.
It was KCR’s decision to give the charge of each Assembly constituency to a minister that paved the way for the success of TRS. His choice too was perfect and each constituency was given a minister who has a ground in the segment.
Take this as an instance; Energy minister G Jagadish Reddy, a trusted aide of the CM, was made incharge of Palakurthy, the lone constituency held by opposition, which was represented by TTDP floor leader Errabelli Dayakar Rao. Jagadish Reddy, who got elected from Suryapet in Nalgonda district, is a native of Tungaturthy, which borders Palakurthy. Jagadish Reddy was chosen for Palakurthy, having a good population of both Velamas and Reddys, so as to garner the votes of his community, sources said.
Joining Jagadish Reddy was deputy CM and former MP from Warangal, Kadiyam Srihari, who was having a running feud with Dayakar Rao. “The majority in Palakurthy was the result of the election management by the party chief,” a party leader opined. KCR was instrumental in even choosing the issues that should be presented before the electorate. “Apart from highlighting the failures of the opposition parties, the lead campaigners focused on issues that directly impact the people. Be it uninterrupted power supply, double bedroom houses or others, we could manage to take our message to the people,” a leader said admitting that all these topics of discussions were chalked out by KCR himself. Even after the party’s victory, KCR minced no words on his future course of action. KCR indirectly declared that he would go ahead with his projects, whatever opposition he faces.
“The opposition protested my decision to shift the Secretariat, to clean the Hussainsagar Lake and to redesign the irrigation projects. But, I got the people’s support for them through this victory,” he said hinting that he would not budge.